Doc maker dishes on movie that never was
Jodorowsky’s Dune tells a tale of dreaming
Imagine Orson Welles, Salvador Dali and Mick Jagger starring in a filmed version of Frank Herbert’s Dune.
It’s an undeniably seductive thought and it drew in U.S. documentary maker Frank Pavich for more than three years.
Pavich tells the saga of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s attempt to make a movie of the psychedelic sci-fi novel.
The result is Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Dune, Pavich’s feature-length documentary opening in theatres this month. Postmedia spoke with Pavich when the film debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Q: What was your entry point into this story?
A: It was in one of those books about the greatest movies never made and it stood out. It’s the most fantastical, even when compared to Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon, or Richard Dreyfuss’s version of Total Recall or the Tom Selleck version of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Q: Was there an ideal time window to make Dune?
A: If you look at what Dune is, it’s a story about Spice, a mindaltering drug. That was the ’70s, or the ’60s. Had it been made then, it would have probably stood up. When Lynch made it in the ’80s, it was something that had a different feel to it. The ’70s was the time to make it.
Q: What about your movie? Is this the right time for your doc?
A: We premièred at Cannes just a f ew hours before Jodorowsky’s first new film in over 20 years, La danza de la realidad (Dance of Reality). So it’s the perfect time for my movie, we are in the midst of a resurgence because Nicolas Refn dedicated Only God Forgives to Jodorowsky, and Blue is the Warmest Colour featured Alejandro’s granddaughter, Alma Jodorowsky. It was the year of Jodorowsky in my opinion.
Q: Did you know that going in?
A: No … But it seems like it was all meant to be.
Q: So where does the creative process acquire meaning, then, if a movie doesn’t get made?
A: It’s in the doing. That’s why Jodorowsky looks at his Dune film as a success, not a failure. He did it in his head. And he was transformed by the experience, as were his whole team of spiritual warriors who went on to make cinema history.
Q: How do you deal with the unknowns?
A: I don’t pretend I know what anything is going to be. Give this film to 10 different people and you will get 10 different versions. I wanted to focus on the positive.